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The Deadliest Animal In the World

Humans commit 437,000 murders a year, but the carrier of malaria and other viruses is even more deadly.

Opinion
By Nicholas Kristof and Jessia Ma Photos and video by Lynsey Addario
This is Gamardine Sanoussi, a 2-year-old girl attacked by the deadliest animal in the world.

The deadliest animal is not the snake, dog, wolf, lion or hippo. It’s not even the human, responsible for murdering some 437,000 of its kind a year.

Rather, the deadliest animal is the tiny mosquito.

Estimates from the World Health Organization and other sources

That’s mostly because of malaria. Mosquitoes spread the blood-borne disease, killing about 445,000 people per year. That figure doesn’t even include deaths from dengue fever, yellow fever, Zika or West Nile viruses.

This is Bruno and his mother, Julienne Moada, in Central African Republic. Julienne has already lost three of her five children to malaria. Bruno, her youngest, has the disease, which has also caused anemia.

Malarial mosquitoes bite principally at night, so one inexpensive protection is a bed net treated with insecticide, costing about $5.

Bruno’s home doesn’t have a bed net.

Bruno’s mom initially treated him with traditional healing methods. Tying this anklet of small vines around Bruno’s foot is one technique. Another includes rubbing coca leaves over the entire body.

When that didn’t help, she brought him to a Catholic Church clinic.

Most of the deaths from malaria are among young children or pregnant women. In rural clinics, a large share of the patients have malaria.

There’s a quick test for malaria with a drop of blood, and then treatment with anti-malaria medicine can be started quickly.

One concern is making sure that people with malaria get treated promptly, when the disease is easy to address.

A delay in treatment can lead to complications such as cerebral malaria. For survivors like Gamardine, this could mean lifelong physical or mental disability.

After many years of remarkable gains against malaria, progress has stalled. In 2016 the number of malaria cases actually rose by more than five million.

We need a major global push to fight malaria, with rich nations and poor nations working together to ensure that we don't tumble backward — and to try to save the lives of kids like Bruno, before it’s too late.

Story Credits

By Nicholas Kristof Photos and Video by Lynsey Addario Produced by Jessia Ma and Stuart A. Thompson